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If you remember the "Dirty Harry" movie "Dead Pool" where a radio controlled corvette model car containing a bomb chases Harry around the streets of San Francisco and eventually detonates under his car destroying it, then you have the general idea of the technology a retired 66-year-old mechanical engineer came up with to win a $25,000 prize from the Air Force Research Laboratory.

In this case, the Air Force had issued a public challenge known as "The Vehicle Stopper," which looked to find "a viable, sustainable, and affordable means of stopping an uncooperative fleeing vehicle without permanent damage to the vehicle or harm to any of its passengers."

Dos wrote: "The solution consists of a remote electric-powered vehicle that can accelerate up to 130 MPH within 3 seconds, position itself under a fleeing car, then automatically trigger a restrained airbag to lift the car and slide it to a stop. This design overcomes the previous restrictions of having to preposition the system. It is almost universally applicable to multiple scenarios and it is very affordable. AFRL has assigned a team and allocated funding to build and test a prototype based on Barbis's detailed design. If the system passes all the operational testing, the prototype will be demonstrated to the USAF Security Forces and the design will be transitioned for operational use."

Dos noted that when the challenge was issued in March, 1,071 people signed up to tackle the problem. "Of these interested parties, 119 people provided a wide range of detailed proposals. A team of AFRL researchers evaluated these proposals and Barbis' really stood out. The team unanimously judged that this novel idea met all of the requirements," he wrote.

Dos said many police forces currently use various "tire shredder" strips. These require the strips to be prepositioned in order to work and destroy the tires in the process. This is dangerous and has led to police officer deaths while getting the strips in place or from drivers swerving around the devices. The Department of Homeland security, in a major contract in 2009, developed the "SQUID." This device entangles the wheels of a vehicle and stops it without destroying any part of the vehicle. But this device also requires being prepositioned and triggered as the vehicle runs over it. None of these devices provide a rapid and easily deployed capability to stop vehicles.

The Competes Act passed last year gives every Federal department and agency the authority to conduct prize competitions, according to the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy. Prizes and challenges have an excellent track record of accelerating problem-solving by tapping America's top talent and best expertise.

Cooney is an Online News Editor and the author of the Layer 8 blog, Network World's daily home for the not-just-networking news. He has been working with Network World since 1992. You can reach him at mcooney@nww.com.